Month: September 2018

California Law Mandates Women on Corporate Boards

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California has become the first state in the country to mandate that women be included on the board of directors of publicly traded companies.

Governor Jerry Brown on Sunday signed into law that every California-based corporation should have at least one woman on its board of directors by the end of next year.

By the end of 2021, a board of directors with five members will be required to have at least two female members and larger boards will require three or more.

“One-fourth of California’s publicly traded companies still do not have a single woman on their board, despite numerous independent studies that show companies with women on their board are more profitable and productive,”Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, the bill’s author, told The Wall Street Journal.

Jackson said the companies, despite being urged to add women to their boards, have done nothing to increase the numbers, making government intervention necessary.

Brown said it might be difficult to enforce the law. “Nevertheless, recent events in Washington, D.C. – and beyond – make it crystal clear that many are not getting the message,” he said.

The law mandates that companies that ignore the issue can be fined $100,000 for a first violation and $300,000 for subsequent violations. Companies also must inform the California secretary of state of the gender representation on their boards. If they fail to report, they would face another $100,000 fine.

Some European countries already mandate female representation on company boards. The European Commission is pushing for that quota to be as high as 40 percent.
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Nobel Prizes Still Struggle With Wide Gender Disparity

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Nobel Prizes are the most prestigious awards on the planet but the aura of this year’s announcements has been dulled by questions over why so few women have entered the pantheon, particularly in the sciences.

The march of Nobel announcements begins Monday with the physiology/medicine prize.

Since the first prizes were awarded in 1901, 892 individuals have received one, but just 48 of them have been women. Thirty of those women won either the literature or peace prize, highlighting the wide gender gap in the laureates for physics, chemistry and physiology/medicine. In addition, only one woman has won for the economics prize, which is not technically a Nobel but is associated with the prizes.

Some of the disparity likely can be attributed to underlying structural reasons, such as the low representation of women in high-level science. The American Institute of Physics, for example, says in 2014, only 10 percent of full physics professorships were held by women.

But critics suggest that gender bias pervades the process of nominations, which come largely from tenured professors.

“The problem is the whole nomination process, you have these tenured professors who feel like they are untouchable. They can get away with everything from sexual harassment to micro-aggressions like assuming the woman in the room will take the notes, or be leaving soon to have babies,” said Anne-Marie Imafidon, the head of Stemettes, a British group that encourages girls and young women to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

“It’s little wonder that these people aren’t putting women forward for nominations. We need to be better at telling the stories of the women in science who are doing good things and actually getting recognition,” she said.

Powerful men taking credit for the ideas and elbow grease of their female colleagues was turned on its head in 1903 when Pierre Curie made it clear he would not accept the physics prize unless his wife and fellow researcher Marie Curie was jointly honored. She was the first female winner of any Nobel prize, but only one other woman has won the physics prize since then.

More than 70 years later, Jocelyn Bell, a post-graduate student at Cambridge, was overlooked for the physics prize despite her crucial contribution to the discovery of pulsars. Her supervisor, Antony Hewish, took all of the Nobel credit.

Brian Keating, a physics professor at the University of California San Diego and author of the book “Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science’s Highest Honor,” says the Nobel Foundation should lift its restrictions on re-awarding for a breakthrough if an individual has been overlooked. He also says posthumous awards also should be considered and there should be no restriction on the number of individuals who can share a prize. Today the limit is three people for one prize.

“These measures would go a long way to addressing the injustice that so few of the brilliant women who have contributed so much to science through the years have been overlooked,” he said.

Keating fears that simply accepting the disparity as structural will seriously harm the prestige of all the Nobel prizes.

“I think with the Hollywood #MeToo movement, it has already happened in the film prizes. It has happened with the literature prize. There is no fundamental law of nature that the Nobel science prizes will continue to be seen as the highest accolade,” he said.

This year’s absence of a Nobel Literature prize , which has been won by 14 women, puts an even sharper focus on the gender gap in science prizes.

The Swedish Academy, which awards the literature prize, said it would not pick a winner this year after sex abuse allegations and financial crimes scandals rocked the secretive panel, sharply dividing its 18 members, who are appointed for life. Seven members quit or distanced themselves from academy. Its permanent secretary, Anders Olsson, said the academy wanted “to commit time to recovering public confidence.”

The academy plans to award both the 2018 prize and the 2019 prize next year — but even that is not guaranteed. The head of the Nobel Foundation, Lars Heikensten, has warned that if the Swedish Academy does not resolve its tarnished image another group could be chosen to select the literature prize each year.

Stung by criticism about the diversity gap between former prize winners, the Nobel Foundation has asked that the science awarding panels for 2019 ask nominators to consider their own biases in the thousands of letters they send to solicit Nobel nominations.

“I am eager to see more nominations for women so they can be considered,” said Goran Hansson, secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and vice chairman of the Nobel Foundation. “We have written to nominators asking them to make sure they do not miss women or people of other ethnicities or nationalities in their nominations. We hope this will make a difference for 2019.”

It’s not the first time that Nobel officials have sought diversity. In his 1895 will, prize founder Alfred Nobel wrote: “It is my express wish that in the awarding of the prizes no consideration shall be given to national affiliations of any kind, so that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not.”

Even so, the prizes remained overwhelmingly white and male for most of their existence.

For the first 70 years, the peace prize skewed heavily toward Western white men, with just two of the 59 prizes awarded to individuals or institutions based outside Europe or North America. Only three of the winners in that period were female.

The 1973 peace prize shared by North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho and American Henry Kissinger widened the horizons — since then more than half the Nobel Peace prizes have gone to African or Asian individuals or institutions.

Since 2000, six women have won the peace prize.

After the medicine prize on Monday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences will announce the Nobel in physics on Tuesday and in chemistry on Wednesday, while the Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded Friday by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. On Oct. 8, Sweden’s Central Bank announces the winner of the economics prize, given in honor of Alfred Nobel.

 
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Nobel Prizes Still Struggle with Wide Gender Disparity

ITeuLeave a comment

Nobel Prizes are the most prestigious awards on the planet but the aura of this year’s announcements has been dulled by questions over why so few women have entered the pantheon, particularly in the sciences.

The march of Nobel announcements begins Monday with the physiology/medicine prize.

Since the first prizes were awarded in 1901, 892 individuals have received one, but just 48 of them have been women. Thirty of those women won either the literature or peace prize, highlighting the wide gender gap in the laureates for physics, chemistry and physiology/medicine. In addition, only one woman has won for the economics prize, which is not technically a Nobel but is associated with the prizes.

Some of the disparity likely can be attributed to underlying structural reasons, such as the low representation of women in high-level science. The American Institute of Physics, for example, says in 2014, only 10 percent of full physics professorships were held by women.

But critics suggest that gender bias pervades the process of nominations, which come largely from tenured professors.

“The problem is the whole nomination process, you have these tenured professors who feel like they are untouchable. They can get away with everything from sexual harassment to micro-aggressions like assuming the woman in the room will take the notes, or be leaving soon to have babies,” said Anne-Marie Imafidon, the head of Stemettes, a British group that encourages girls and young women to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

“It’s little wonder that these people aren’t putting women forward for nominations. We need to be better at telling the stories of the women in science who are doing good things and actually getting recognition,” she said.

Powerful men taking credit for the ideas and elbow grease of their female colleagues was turned on its head in 1903 when Pierre Curie made it clear he would not accept the physics prize unless his wife and fellow researcher Marie Curie was jointly honored. She was the first female winner of any Nobel prize, but only one other woman has won the physics prize since then.

More than 70 years later, Jocelyn Bell, a post-graduate student at Cambridge, was overlooked for the physics prize despite her crucial contribution to the discovery of pulsars. Her supervisor, Antony Hewish, took all of the Nobel credit.

Brian Keating, a physics professor at the University of California San Diego and author of the book “Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science’s Highest Honor,” says the Nobel Foundation should lift its restrictions on re-awarding for a breakthrough if an individual has been overlooked. He also says posthumous awards also should be considered and there should be no restriction on the number of individuals who can share a prize. Today the limit is three people for one prize.

“These measures would go a long way to addressing the injustice that so few of the brilliant women who have contributed so much to science through the years have been overlooked,” he said.

Keating fears that simply accepting the disparity as structural will seriously harm the prestige of all the Nobel prizes.

“I think with the Hollywood (hash)MeToo movement, it has already happened in the film prizes. It has happened with the literature prize. There is no fundamental law of nature that the Nobel science prizes will continue to be seen as the highest accolade,” he said.

This year’s absence of a Nobel Literature prize, which has been won by 14 women, puts an even sharper focus on the gender gap in science prizes.

The Swedish Academy, which awards the literature prize, said it would not pick a winner this year after sex abuse allegations and financial crimes scandals rocked the secretive panel, sharply dividing its 18 members, who are appointed for life. Seven members quit or distanced themselves from academy. Its permanent secretary, Anders Olsson, said the academy wanted “to commit time to recovering public confidence.”

The academy plans to award both the 2018 prize and the 2019 prize next year _ but even that is not guaranteed. The head of the Nobel Foundation, Lars Heikensten, was quoted Friday as warning that if the Swedish Academy does not resolve its tarnished image another group could be chosen to select the literature prize every year.

Stung by criticism about the diversity gap between former prize winners, the Nobel Foundation has asked that the science awarding panels for 2019 ask nominators to consider their own biases in the thousands of letters they send to solicit Nobel nominations.

“I am eager to see more nominations for women so they can be considered,” said Goran Hansson, secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and vice chairman of the Nobel Foundation. “We have written to nominators asking them to make sure they do not miss women or people of other ethnicities or nationalities in their nominations. We hope this will make a difference for 2019.”

It’s not the first time that Nobel officials have sought diversity. In his 1895 will, prize founder Alfred Nobel wrote: “It is my express wish that in the awarding of the prizes no consideration shall be given to national affiliations of any kind, so that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not.”

Even so, the prizes remained overwhelmingly white and male for most of their existence.

For the first 70 years, the peace prize skewed heavily toward Western white men, with just two of the 59 prizes awarded to individuals or institutions based outside Europe or North America. Only three of the winners in that period were female.

The 1973 peace prize shared by North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho and American Henry Kissinger widened the horizons _ since then more than half the Nobel Peace prizes have gone to African or Asian individuals or institutions.

Since 2000, six women have won the peace prize.

After the medicine prize on Monday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences will announce the Nobel in physics on Tuesday and in chemistry on Wednesday, while the Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded Friday by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. On Oct. 8, Sweden’s Central Bank announces the winner of the economics prize, given in honor of Alfred Nobel.
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Cameroon President Launches Campaign on Northern Border

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Cameroon president Paul Biya says he has successfully pushed the militant group  Boko Haram beyond Cameroon’s borders and urgently needs to be re-elected in the October 7 presidential poll so he can rebuild what was destroyed. Biya was in the northern town of Maroua in one of his rare outings from his presidential palace to launch his campaigns for the presidential election.

Women dressed in President Paul Biya’s Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) party attire sing Saturday to welcome Paul Biya to Maroua. They are assuring Biya that they will vote for him to lead Cameroon in a new seven year mandate beginning October 7.

More than 30,000 people ferried by the CPDM party from all over northern Cameroon are present in Maroua. Biya’s campaign photos can be seen everywhere in the town.

Paul Biya told them he has come to give his assurances of his love for the people of northern Cameroon.

He said he has decided to visit Maroua as a sign of the high esteem he has for the people of Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria and because he wants to inform them of the new opportunities he will offer when re-elected.

He said he cherishes the people of far north Cameroon because they resisted the destruction, burning and killing by the barbaric group Boko Haram and now that terrorism has been defeated, it is time to create conditions for a return to normal economic, administrative and social life.

Paul Biya said he will improve agriculture, start the exploration of what he said was the rich natural resources of the region and build a rail line to link north Cameroon and Chad to spur economic activity now that peace has returned and Boko Haram has been defeated.

As Biya and his crowd of over 30,000 met at the Lamido Yaya Dairou Municipal Stadium, about 200 supporters of opposition candidate Maurice Kamtos of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement Party (CRM)  campaigned on the outskirts of Maroua.

Yimnyo Mamadou who leads the campaign rally said Paul Biya was deceiving the masses. He said Biya has been responsible for the underdevelopment of Cameroon. He accuses Biya of not being sensitive to the needs of his people and hardly visits them.  

He said Biya has distracted Cameroonians for 36 years and it is high time the people are told the truth and made to understand that Biya has not provided an enabling environment for their education, has not provided basic needs such as water and does not pay civil servants well. He said Biya should be truthful to himself and acknowledge that Cameroon is in a pitiful state.

Paul Biya who is likely to win at the the polls  has not announced that he will visit other regions of the country where there is or has been unrest.
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S. Sudanese Surgeon to Use Nansen Award to Aid War Victims

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Winner of this year’s UNHCR Nansen Award, South Sudanese surgeon, Evan Atar Adaha, says he will use the Award’s $150,000 cash prize to upgrade his ill-equipped hospital, so he can save more lives.  Atar will be honored for two-decades of medical services to victims of war and persecution at an official ceremony Monday.

Evan Atar Adha and a team of doctors, nurses and midwives work in Maban hospital in Bunj, a town of more than 200,000 people in northeastern South Sudan.  Atar said his hospital, which lies in the midst of a war zone, lacks even the most basic equipment and supplies.  He told VOA the challenges facing him, and his team are enormous.

“The resources of this award are going to really help us do better because we obviously will be able to get some equipment and some machines that we need like anesthetic machine, x-ray.”

Atar said the team at Maban hospital carries out an average of 58 surgeries a week with only a single light in the surgical theater.  He said electricity is provided by generators that often break down.  The hospital itself, he said has room for only 120 beds.  This is not enough so, people sleep on the verandah—wherever there is space.

“Our maternity, if you like has 30 beds and we are putting two mothers in one bed…So, with this—if we are able to expand maternity, I will be so happy.”

For the past two decades, Atar has provided medical aid for thousands of refugees, internally displaced, wounded fighters and local communities at great personal sacrifice.  He sees his wife and four children in Nairobi, Kenya three times a year.  Yet, he said he has no plans to retire.

“I will work for another 20 years.  I think as long as I am seeing I am needed in the place… I will not go from there until I make sure things are really settled in the end and the only hope for that is actually peace.  If peace comes to South Sudan and Sudan.”

Nansen winner Atar told VOA he will be happy when he is no longer needed.
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Indonesia: Death Toll of More Than 800 Likely to Rise

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Indonesian officials say they fear the death toll from Friday’s earthquake and tsunami could soar into the thousands when rescuers are able to get to remote areas.

There were 832 confirmed deaths late Sunday with the city of Palu on Sulawesi island the hardest hit.

The airport is barely functioning, most power plants have been knocked off-line, and roads are shattered and twisted.

Touring Palu Sunday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo said one of the immediate needs is to bring in the heavy equipment needed to move large pieces of rubble.

“We didn’t expect it to be like this. So we hope and pray for the communities and be patient,” he told disaster victims. “We know that there are a lot of things to do urgently, but the condition is not now possible.”

He told soldiers deployed to the area to be ready to work nonstop.

Television pictures from Palu show buildings, cars and trees pushed together to form shingle mounds of wreckage.

A young woman was pulled out alive from the rubble of Palu’s collapsed Roa Roa Hotel. But rescuers say the number of other voices crying for help gradually dwindled throughout Sunday and are now silent.

In Pictures: Earthquake, Tsunami Strike Sulawesi Island

Security officials appear to be doing little to stop looters from grabbing food and supplies from wrecked shopping centers

The 7.5-magnitude quake triggered a huge tsunami with waves as high as 6 meters, which inundated the cities of Palu and Donggala.

Authorities say hundreds of people were on the beach in Palu for a festival when the earthquake and tsunami struck, sweeping many away to their deaths when the giant waves arrived.

Indonesia had been working with the U.S. National Science Foundation on a prototype tsunami early warning system that picks up changes in the water column on the ocean floor.

But the project was put on hold last week, apparently because the recent devaluation of the Indonesian currency created concerns in Indonesia about how to pay for its share of the project.

Professor Louise Comfort of the University of Pittsburgh is the lead U.S. scientist for the early detection project.

Comfort calls it “heartbreaking” that if Indonesia had come up with just another $50,000 to keep the prototype operating, hundreds and maybe thousands of lives could have been saved.

“I am profoundly disappointed, profoundly disappointed,” she tells VOA. “We have Indonesian researchers who have been working valiantly for 10 years trying to get a system like this in place … this is particularly painful for me.”

Because the system was not operating, Comfort said officials had no direct measurement of changes in the water caused by the earthquake and had to depend on less-sensitive, land-based systems.

Indonesia and its 18,000 islands are located along the Pacific Ocean’s “Ring of Fire” and are frequently struck by earthquake, volcano and tsunami activity.

A 9.1-magnitude quake in 2004 off Sumatra and subsequent tsunami killed about 230,000 people in 14 Pacific countries, with about half of those deaths occurring in Indonesia.

Ira Mellman and Ken Schwartz contributed to this report.

 
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Japan Election Weighs Controversy of US Bases on Okinawa

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Okinawans headed to the polls Sunday to choose a governor in an election that many see hinging on how voters feel about the American military presence on the southwestern Japanese islands.

The race among four candidates is close between two: an outspoken critic of the U.S. military presence and a ruling party-backed candidate pushing the status quo.

 

The winner succeeds Takeshi Onaga, who died in August of pancreatic cancer. He wanted the bases off Okinawa.

 

Denny Tamaki, a legislator, is pledging to continue with Onaga’s “spirit.” Atsushi Sakima, a mayor, wants to work with the national government to sort out the problem.

 

Okinawa houses about half of the 54,000 American troops stationed in Japan and makes for 64 percent of the land space used by the U.S. bases, under a bilateral security treaty, according to John S. Hutcheson, spokesman for the U.S. Forces in Japan.

 

The arrangement has long been protested by some as an unfair burden on Okinawa, which makes up less than 1 percent of Japan’s land space.

 

Japan remains highly dependent on the U.S. for defense, but crimes by members of the military, including hit-and-runs as well as rapes, have outraged the people of Okinawa. They are also angry about noise pollution and the dangers of crashes from military aircraft.

 

Still, over the decades the livelihood of many people has become linked to the American troops.

 

Tamaki, whose mother is Japanese and whose father is a U.S. Marine he has never met, has often said he is a symbol of the predicament of his people.

 

“I can clearly state we no longer want in Okinawa the U.S. bases that destroy our peace and destroy our nature,” Tamaki, 58, said during his campaign.

 

He has promised policies that care about “the weak,” helping workers, students and those who face discrimination.

 

Before running for governor, Sakima, 54, was mayor of Ginowan, where the Marines air base called Futenma is located.

 

Futenma is at the center of the controversy over the government relocation plan for U.S. troops to less densely populated Henoko in Nago, Okinawa.

 

The planning dates back to the 1995 rape of a schoolgirl in which three U.S. servicemen were convicted. But the planning and construction of Henoko has repeatedly been delayed because of local opposition to the bases.

 

Some are also pointing to the threat that base construction, which includes a landfill, may bring to the environment, including to a coral reef and dugong and other marine life.

 

Sakima, who is backed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said he would work with the national government to minimize the U.S. military presence, especially in closing Futenma.

 

“I will work to move forward on dealing with the reduction of the U.S. troops that we have wanted so long,” he said. “If I become governor, I will do my utmost so we can gain the understanding of the people about the Henoko problem.”

 

Both candidates are promising to revive Okinawa, taking advantage of its cultural resources and rich potential as a resort destination.

 

Outside of Okinawa, the national government and public opinion appear to support strengthening Japan’s security measures as it faces nuclear threats from North Korea and the growing military might of China. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration also has been pushing Japan to do more to defend itself.

 

 

 

 
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Low Turnout in Macedonia Name-Change Referendum

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Few Macedonians turned out to vote in a referendum on whether to change the name of their country — a move that could pave the way for it to join NATO and the European Union.

According to election officials, only about a third of eligible voters cast ballots Sunday. But more than 90 percent of those voting cast a ballot in favor of changing the country’s name to North Macedonia.

Macedonia’s electoral commission said two days ago the referendum results would be declared invalid if less than 50 percent of the eligible voting population went to the polls

Nationalists, including Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov, had urged a boycott of the vote.

Macedonians are being asked to change the name of their country to end a decades-old dispute with neighboring Greece and pave the way for the country’s admission into NATO and the European Union.

Athens has argued that the name “Macedonia” belongs exclusively to its northern province of Macedonia and using the name implies Skopje’s intentions to claim the Greek province.

Greece has for years pressured Skopje into renouncing the country’s name, forcing it to use the more formal moniker Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in the United Nations. Greece has consistently blocked its smaller neighbor from gaining membership in NATO and the EU as long it retains its name.

President Ivanov said giving in to Athens’ demand would be a “flagrant violation of sovereignty.”

He steadfastly refused to back the deal reached between Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and his Greek counterpart, Alexis Tsipras, that put the name change to a vote.

“This referendum could lead us to become a subordinate state, dependent on another country,” Ivanov said. “We will become a state in name only, not in substance.”
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Typhoon Pummels Japan; Flights Canceled, Trains Shut Down

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A powerful typhoon ripped through Japan on Sunday, forcing cancellations of flights and trains, including in the Tokyo area as authorities warned of strong winds and torrential rain.

Farms and homes in Miyazaki on the southern main island of Kyushu were flooded as Typhoon Trami swept across southwestern Japan. Evacuation orders were issued for tens of thousands of people over a widespread area, including more than 250,000 people in the city of Tokushima on the island of Shikoku, the national broadcaster NHK reported.

 

At least 51 people were injured in southern Japan, it said.   

 

Many flights were canceled at major airports throughout Japan, including Tokyo’s Narita and Haneda. The storm destroyed power lines on the southern islands of Okinawa on Saturday.

 

Trami was expected to hit Tokyo late Sunday, and slam northern Japan on Monday.

 

Bullet trains and other train lines were shutting down while the storm passed. Tokyo’s train lines announced they were shutting down after 8 p.m. (11 GMT).      

 

The typhoon is projected to hit regions ravaged earlier this month by Typhoon Jebi, which caused landslides and floods and temporarily shuttered Kansai International Airport. The strongest typhoon to hit Japan in 25 years, Jebi caused 11 deaths in and around Osaka.

 

The airport also was closed for this latest typhoon.  

 

In July, heavy rain in western Japan killed 221 people, setting off landslides and flooding.
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Toll Tops to 800 in Indonesia Quake, Tsunami

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The death toll from an earthquake and tsunami on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi rose to 832 Sunday, the national disaster mitigation agency said in Jakarta, adding it assessed the affected area to be bigger than initially thought.

Dozens of people were reported to be trapped in the rubble of two hotels and a mall in the city of Palu, buildings brought down in the 7.5 magnitude earthquake, which struck Friday and triggered tsunami waves as high as 6 meters (20 feet), agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told a news conference.

A young woman was pulled alive from the rubble of the Roa Roa Hotel, the news website Detik.com reported. Hotel owner Ko Jefry told Metro TV Saturday that up to 60 people were believed trapped. Hundreds of people gathered at the mall searching for loved ones.

“We’ve got information from people that their relatives are still inside, so we’re focusing on that, especially to find survivors,” a rescuer identified as Yusuf, working at the ruins of the mall, told Metro TV.

Bracing for more casualties

Authorities are bracing for more casualty reports to filter in from outlying areas, in particular, Donggala, a region of 300,000 people north of Palu and closer to the epicenter of the quake.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the toll could rise into the thousands.

A disaster official said the tsunami traveled across the sea at speeds of 800 kph (500 mph) before striking the shore, and casualties could have been caused along a 300 km (200 miles) stretch of coast, north and south of Palu.

Donggala town has been extensively damaged, with houses swept into the sea and bodies trapped in debris, according to a Metro TV reporter on the scene.

The Red Cross said it had heard nothing from the Donggala region.

“This is extremely worrying,” it said in a statement. “This is already a tragedy, but it could get much worse.”

National search and rescue agency chief Muhammad Syaugi told Reuters rescuers were flying to Donggala by helicopter.

 

Questions about tsunami warnings

Indonesia is all too familiar with deadly earthquakes and tsunamis. In 2004, a quake off Sumatra island triggered a tsunami across the Indian Ocean, killing 226,000 people in 13 countries, including more than 120,000 in Indonesia.

Questions are sure to be asked why warning systems set up around the country after that disaster appear to have failed Friday.

The meteorological and geophysics agency BMKG issued a tsunami warning after the Friday quake but lifted it 34 minutes later, drawing criticism it had withdrawn it too quickly. But officials said they estimated the waves had hit while the warning was in force.

Hundreds of people had gathered for a festival on Palu’s beach when the water smashed onshore at dusk. 

Palu is at the head of a narrow bay, about 10 km long and 2 km wide, which had “amplified” the force of the wave as it was funneled toward the city, a geophysics agency official said.

Questions have been raised about what caused the tsunami, with speculation an underwater landslide was to blame.

The BMKG said its closest sensor, about 200 km (125 miles) from Palu, had only recorded an “insignificant,” six-cm (2.5 inches) wave, while researchers said it was surprising the quake, which was recorded as a “strike-slip” event, when tectonic plates move horizontally against each other rather than vertically, had generated a tsunami.

“It may be that the shock of the quake triggered a landslide underwater, but we don’t have any proof yet,” Abdul Muhari, who heads a tsunami research team that advises the government, told Reuters.

Video footage on social media showed a man on the upper floor of a building shouting warnings of the approaching tsunami to people on the street below moments before the wave crashed ashore. Reuters was not able to authenticate the footage.

The Head of the National Disaster Management Agency, Willem Rampangilei, told reporters in Sulawesi late Saturday that rescuers were struggling in their hunt for more victims.

“We are having difficulty deploying heavy equipment … because many of the roads leading to Palu city are damaged,” he was quoted by the Kompas newspaper as saying.

About 10,000 displaced people were scattered at 50 different places in Palu, he said. Dozens of injured people were being treated in tents set up in the open.

‘Horrifying’

Photos confirmed by authorities showed bodies lined up on a street on Saturday, some in bags and some with their faces covered by clothes.

President Joko Widodo was scheduled to visit evacuation centers Sunday.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Indonesia had not asked for help but he had contacted President Widodo overnight to offer support and deep sympathies.

“It is horrifying. … If he needs our help, he’ll have it,” he told ABC TV’s Insiders program.

The military has started sending in aircraft with aid from Jakarta and other cities, authorities said.

Palu’s airport was damaged in the quake, but had reopened for limited commercial flights, authorities said.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and is regularly hit by earthquakes.

In August, a series of quakes killed more than 500 people on the tourist island of Lombok, hundreds of kilometers southwest of Sulawesi.
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Croatian Vintner Ages Wines in Amphoras on Adriatic Sea Floor

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Traditional two-handled ceramic jars known as amphoras were used extensively in ancient Greece to store and transport a variety of products, especially wine. These days they are more likely to be found in shipwrecks than in stores. But wine-filled amphoras are once again being found on the sea floor, not from sunken ships, but deliberately placed there by a special Eastern European winery. Faith Lapidus explains.
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Some US Catholic Churches Close as Attendance Flags

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The Catholic Church is closing parishes across the American Midwest and Northeast in response to years of flagging attendance. Changing demographics and an overall trend of secularism is partly to blame, but repeated cases of sexual abuse in the church have not helped. Reporter Teresa Krug reports from the Midwestern state of Iowa, where some church members are questioning why they should stay.
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Using Art to Unite a Divided Neighborhood

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Sedgwick Street in Chicago is a thoroughfare divided by race and socio-economics. The area was settled by German, Irish and Sicilian immigrants. But in the 1950s and ’60s, when the original settlers began moving out, African-Americans, Puerto Ricans and so-called hippies started moving in. Today, Sedgwick Street remains a social and economic demarcation line between the haves and the have-nots. But as VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports, one art studio owner hopes to use art to unite the neighborhood.
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Fearing Debt Trap, Pakistan Rethinks Chinese ‘Silk Road’ Projects

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After lengthy delays, an $8.2 billion revamp of a colonial-era rail line snaking from the Arabian Sea to the foothills of the Hindu Kush has become a test of Pakistan’s ability to rethink signature Chinese “Silk Road” projects because of debt concerns.

The rail megaproject linking the coastal metropolis of Karachi to the northwestern city of Peshawar is China’s biggest Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project in Pakistan, but Islamabad has balked at the cost and financing terms.

Resistance has stiffened under the new government of populist Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has voiced alarm about rising debt levels and says the country must wean itself off foreign loans.

“We are seeing how to develop a model so the government of Pakistan wouldn’t have all the risk,” Khusro Bakhtyar, minister in Pakistan’s planning ministry, told reporters recently.

​Unease elsewhere

The cooling of enthusiasm for China’s investments mirrors the unease of incoming governments in Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Maldives, where new administrations have come to power wary of Chinese deals struck by their predecessors.

Pakistan’s new government had wanted to review all BRI contracts. Officials say there are concerns the deals were badly negotiated, too expensive or overly favored China.

But to Islamabad’s frustration, Beijing is only willing to review projects that have not yet begun, three senior government officials have told Reuters.

China’s Foreign Ministry said, in a statement in response to questions faxed by Reuters, that both sides were committed to pressing forward with BRI projects, “to ensure those projects that are already built operate as normal, and those which are being built proceed smoothly.”

Pakistani officials say they remain committed to Chinese investment but want to push harder on price and affordability, while re-orientating the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), for which Beijing has pledged about $60 billion in infrastructure funds, to focus on projects that deliver social development in line with Khan’s election platform.

​‘Mutual consultation’

China’s Ambassador to Pakistan, Yao Jing, told Reuters that Beijing was open to changes proposed by the new government and “we will definitely follow their agenda” to work out a roadmap for BRI projects based on “mutual consultation.”

“It constitutes a process of discussion with each other about this kind of model, about this kind of roadmap for the future,” Yao said.

Beijing would only proceed with projects that Pakistan wanted, he added.

“This is Pakistan’s economy, this is their society,” Yao said.

IMF bailout likely

Islamabad’s efforts to recalibrate CPEC are made trickier by its dependence on Chinese loans to prop up its vulnerable economy.

Growing fissures in relations with the United States, Pakistan’s historic ally, have also weakened the country’s negotiating hand, as has a current account crisis likely to lead to a bailout by the International Monetary Fund, which may demand spending cuts.

“We have reservations, but no other country is investing in Pakistan. What can we do?” one Pakistani minister told Reuters.

​Crumbling railways

The ML-1 rail line is the spine of country’s dilapidated rail network, which has in recent years been edging toward collapse as passenger numbers plunge, train lines close and the vital freight business nosedives.

Khan’s government has vowed to make the 1,872 km (1,163 mile) line a priority CPEC project, saying it will help the poor travel across the vast South Asian nation.

But Islamabad is exploring funding options for CPEC projects that depart from the traditional BRI lending model, whereby host nations take on Chinese debt to finance construction of infrastructure, and has invited Saudi Arabia and other countries to invest.

One option for ML-1, according to Pakistani officials, is the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model, which would see investors or companies finance and build the project and recoup their investment from cash flows generated mainly by the rail freight business, before returning it to Pakistan in a few decades time.

Yao, the Chinese envoy, said Beijing was open to BOT and would “encourage” its companies to invest.

​Large rail projects, problems

Rail mega-projects under China’s BRI umbrella have run into problems elsewhere in Asia. A line linking Thailand and Laos has been beset by delays over financing, while Malaysia’s new Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad outright canceled the Chinese-funded $20 billion East Coast Rail Link (ECRL).

Beijing is happy to offer loans, but reticent to invest in the Pakistan venture as such projects are seldom profitable, according to Andrew Small, author of a book on China-Pakistan relations.

“The problem is that the Chinese don’t think they can make money on this project and are not keen on BOT,” Small said.

Off-books debt

During President Xi Jinping’s visit to Pakistan in 2015, the ML-1 line was placed among a list of “early harvest” CPEC projects that would be prioritized, along with power plants urgently needed to end crippling electricity shortages.

But while many other projects from that list have now been completed, the rail scheme has been stuck.

Pakistani officials say they became wary of how early BRI contracts were awarded to Chinese firms, and are pushing for a public tender for ML-1.

Partly to help with price discovery, Pakistan asked the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to finance a chunk of the rail project through tendering. The ADB began discussions on a $1.5-$2 billion loan, but China insisted the project was “too strategic,” and Islamabad kicked out the ADB under pressure from Beijing in early 2017, according to Pakistani and ADB officials.

“If it’s such a strategic project then it should be a viable project for them to finance on very concessional terms or invest in?” said one senior Pakistani official familiar with the project, referring to the BOT model.

China’s foreign ministry said Beijing was engaged in “friendly consultations” with Pakistan on the rail project.

Chinese companies participated in BRI projects in an open and transparent way, “pooling benefits and sharing risks,” it said.

Chinese debt or no project

Analysts say Pakistan will struggle to attract non-Chinese investors into the project, which may force it to choose between piling on Chinese debt or walking away from the project.

In 2017, Pakistan turned down Chinese funding for a $14 billion mega-dam project in the Himalayas because of cost concerns and worries Beijing could end up owning a vital national asset if Pakistan could not repay loans, as occurred with a Sri Lankan port.

Khan’s government chafes at several Chinese intercity mass transport projects in Punjab, the voter heartland of the previous government, which now need hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies every year.

They also fume about the risk of accumulating off-books sovereign debt through power contracts, where annual profits of above 20 percent, in dollar terms, were guaranteed by the previous administration.

With the ML-1 line, there are also those who harbor doubts closer to home, including the previous government’s finance minister, Miftah Ismail, who said his ministry had always had concerns about its viability.

“When people say it’s a project of national importance, that usually means it makes no sense financially,” he said.
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British PM to Unveil New Tax on Foreign Homebuyers

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Prime Minister Theresa May will unveil plans Sunday to levy an extra fee on foreign buyers of homes in Britain, saying she wanted to stop it being as easy for those who do not live in the country to buy homes “as hard working British residents.”

May, struggling to unite her governing Conservatives behind her Brexit strategy, hopes to use her party’s annual conference in the English city of Birmingham this week to reset her agenda to tackle growing inequality in Britain.

Aware that the opposition Labour Party staged a successful conference last week and set out new policies targeting many of those who voted to leave the European Union, May will try to take the upper hand by launching a new social agenda.

“At Conservative conference last year, I said I would dedicate my premiership to restoring the British Dream, that life should be better for each new generation, and that means fixing our broken housing market,” she will say. “It cannot be right that it is as easy for individuals who don’t live in the UK, as well as foreign based companies, to buy homes as hard working British residents.”

She will say that a new surcharge will be levied on top of all other stamp duty, a tax paid on property purchases, including higher levels of stamp duty introduced in April 2016, on second home and buy-to-let purchases.

The government did not say when the new rates would be introduced but said it would consult on the stamp duty increase, which would be levied on individuals and companies not paying tax in Britain.
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US Bases on Okinawa Focus of Japan Election

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Okinawans are choosing a governor in an election that many see hinging on how voters feel about the American military presence on the southwestern Japanese island.

Voters were deciding between four candidates Sunday, with it expected to be a close race between two: an outspoken critic of the bases and a ruling party-backed candidate pushing the status quo.

The winner succeeds Takeshi Onaga, who died in August of pancreatic cancer. He wanted the bases off Okinawa.

Denny Tamaki, a legislator, is pledging to continue with Onaga’s “spirit.”

Atsushi Sakima, a mayor, wants to work with the national government to sort out the problem.

Under a treaty, the U.S. maintains forces in Japan, two-thirds on Okinawa. The arrangement has long been protested by some as an unfair burden on Okinawa.
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